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Offline sinkspur

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Why Cruz could beat Clinton
« on: April 17, 2016, 10:41:32 pm »
https://www.nationaljournal.com/s/622566?unlock=YLPIJJDCQVFMBYEF

Why Cruz Could Beat Clinton

He’s an outsider with a malleable image running against an insider with glaring vulnerabilities.

 
Josh Kraushaar


 April 17, 2016, 6 a.m.

Last Novem­ber, I spent a week in Ken­tucky to cov­er one of the most-loathed Re­pub­lic­ans on the bal­lot that year. Matt Bev­in, an am­bi­tious, tea-party-ori­ented busi­ness­man who had chal­lenged Sen­ate Minor­ity Lead­er Mitch Mc­Con­nell in a 2014 Sen­ate primary, was now the GOP’s gubernat­ori­al stand­ard-bear­er in the biggest race in the coun­try. Mc­Con­nell’s ad­visers tried to pre­vent Bev­in from win­ning a di­vided primary. After he se­cured the nom­in­a­tion, Re­pub­lic­an in­siders openly dis­missed his chances of win­ning the gen­er­al elec­tion; they were ex­as­per­ated that he nev­er listened to the party es­tab­lish­ment for ad­vice. Demo­crats be­lieved the preelec­tion polls show­ing their nom­in­ee, ex­per­i­enced state At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Jack Con­way, with a com­fort­able lead.

De­fy­ing con­ven­tion­al wis­dom, Bev­in won in a land­slide. Des­pite hav­ing weak ap­prov­al rat­ings, he pre­vailed be­cause his Demo­crat­ic op­pon­ent’s num­bers were even worse. And he has achieved some early con­ser­vat­ive gov­ern­ing suc­cesses in a state where Demo­crats had dom­in­ated.

Ted Cruz is Matt Bev­in, on a na­tion­al level. 

He’s an op­por­tun­ist­ic politi­cian who at­ten­ded Prin­ceton and Har­vard Law School, and worked on George W. Bush’s pres­id­en­tial cam­paign—un­til real­iz­ing his greatest polit­ic­al op­por­tun­ity came in run­ning against the es­tab­lish­ment. He is am­bi­tious to the point of ali­en­at­ing even friends and col­leagues. He’s an out­sider in a polit­ic­al en­vir­on­ment in which be­ing dis­liked in Wash­ing­ton is a polit­ic­al as­set. And if he emerges as the GOP nom­in­ee, he’d have the good for­tune to be run­ning against Hil­lary Clin­ton, a Demo­crat­ic in­sider with his­tor­ic­ally weak fa­vor­ab­il­ity num­bers.

Demo­crats and Re­pub­lic­ans alike dis­miss his chances in a gen­er­al elec­tion at their own risk.

The main reas­on Cruz will be com­pet­it­ive for the pres­id­ency is the fun­da­ment­al real­ity of the 2016 elec­tion. With the back­drop of a dis­af­fected elect­or­ate and a deeply po­lar­iz­ing pres­id­ent leav­ing of­fice after two terms, any Re­pub­lic­an nom­in­ee be­ne­fits from be­ing the can­did­ate of change. Demo­crats are also deal­ing with their own deep­en­ing in­tra-party di­vide—one that, if it wer­en’t for the head­line-grabbing rise of Don­ald Trump, would be the de­fin­ing theme of the 2016 elec­tions.   

Clin­ton is en­ter­ing the gen­er­al elec­tion with glar­ing vul­ner­ab­il­it­ies of her own. Her im­age is tox­ic to Re­pub­lic­ans and in­de­pend­ents, and her pop­ular­ity among Demo­crats is now at an all-time low as a pres­id­en­tial can­did­ate, ac­cord­ing to Gal­lup’s polling. It won’t take a top-tier Re­pub­lic­an can­did­ate to win.

Re­pub­lic­ans dis­like Cruz so much that they over­look the fact that he’s read the polit­ic­al mood of his party bet­ter than most of his GOP col­leagues. Demo­crats dis­agree with him so in­tensely on im­mig­ra­tion and abor­tion that they’re blinded to the fact that their party is be­com­ing equally out of touch with the av­er­age voter on na­tion­al se­cur­ity and law-and-or­der is­sues.

Cruz brings some un­her­al­ded as­sets to the race, even as a weak­er-than-usu­al Re­pub­lic­an nom­in­ee.   

First, he has a lot more op­por­tun­ity to re­ori­ent his cam­paign mes­sage for a gen­er­al elec­tion than Clin­ton has in re­fur­bish­ing her run-down im­age. Cruz crit­ics as­sume his me­diocre fa­vor­ab­il­ity num­bers will get even worse in a gen­er­al elec­tion, but his pub­lic stand­ing is bound to im­prove if Re­pub­lic­ans rally around him as the nom­in­ee. And if Cruz is so power-hungry, as his crit­ics claim, it’s easy to ima­gine him mak­ing the ne­ces­sary com­prom­ises to win a pres­id­en­tial elec­tion. He’s nev­er go­ing to be likable, but he has op­por­tun­it­ies to soften his rough edges.

If elec­ted, he’d be the first His­pan­ic pres­id­ent of the United States—a bio­graph­ic­al note that will come up more as the con­ven­tion nears. The party boasts a deep bench of di­verse of­fice­hold­ers for him to pick a run­ning mate. His youth and made-for-TV fam­ily (that CNN fea­tured at a town hall this week) con­trast fa­vor­ably to the stale seni­or­ity of the Clin­tons. 

And with the GOP race now likely to be de­cided at a con­tested con­ven­tion, ex­pect Cruz to start pivot­ing to a mes­sage aimed at the gen­er­al elec­tion. His re­cent re­fus­al to com­mit back­ing “per­son­hood” le­gis­la­tion that he pre­vi­ously cham­pioned is one tell­tale sign he’s already mod­er­at­ing his tone on po­lar­iz­ing so­cial is­sues. All told, Cruz’s gen­er­al-elec­tion mes­sage is un­likely to de­vi­ate much from that of re­cent Re­pub­lic­an nom­in­ees.

Second, the polling points to a com­pet­it­ive gen­er­al elec­tion between Clin­ton and Cruz. Na­tion­al polls show the race with­in 3 points (ac­cord­ing to the Real­Clear­Polit­ics av­er­age), with reput­able state polls show­ing Cruz tied with her in blue-state Wis­con­sin and Pennsylvania. Cruz con­sist­ently runs far more com­pet­it­ively against Clin­ton than Trump does. Her num­bers have been con­sist­ently weak des­pite a fairly civil primary cam­paign in which Bernie Sanders has mostly stuck to is­sues, and avoided rais­ing ques­tions about her per­son­al in­teg­rity.

Third, Cruz is the most likely Re­pub­lic­an to hold to­geth­er a fray­ing co­ali­tion at the Clev­e­land con­ven­tion. He’s locked down the tra­di­tion­al con­ser­vat­ive base, he has half-hearted back­ing from the es­tab­lish­ment (thanks to Trump), and, not long ago, he was con­sidered the clear second-choice can­did­ate for Trump back­ers. Trump would di­vide the party, and nom­in­at­ing a “white knight” can­did­ate would risk ali­en­at­ing the clear ma­jor­ity of GOP voters who have backed out­sider, anti­es­tab­lish­ment can­did­ates this year.

That’s the key to the gen­er­al elec­tion: Will the Re­pub­lic­an Party split in two, or will a nom­in­ee be able to main­tain the un­stable co­ali­tion that has led the party to his­tor­ic highs in House, Sen­ate, and state le­gis­lat­ive seats after sweep­ing vic­tor­ies in the 2010 and 2014 midterms? As one seni­or GOP op­er­at­ive told Na­tion­al Journ­al: “We’d win in a land­slide as long as Trump and Cruz aren’t our nom­in­ees.”

But the no­tion that Cruz is an un­elect­able, Gold­wa­ter-like can­did­ate isn’t backed up by any em­pir­ic­al evid­ence—just gut feel­ings. He’s no more ideo­lo­gic­ally po­lar­iz­ing than Ron­ald Re­agan was in 1980 and Pres­id­ent Obama was in 2012.  And as Matt Bev­in demon­strated in Ken­tucky, even flawed can­did­ates who need­lessly ali­en­ate col­leagues can win in the right en­vir­on­ment against the right type of op­pon­ent
Roy Moore's "spiritual warfare" is driving past a junior high without stopping.

Offline Frank Cannon

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Re: Why Cruz could beat Clinton
« Reply #1 on: April 17, 2016, 11:02:20 pm »
Why Cruz could beat Clinton

Because he is awesome. Nuff said.

Offline Mesaclone

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Re: Why Cruz could beat Clinton
« Reply #2 on: April 17, 2016, 11:31:37 pm »
He's a Pat Robertson redux in political guise, no longer an outsider, and cannot win back any state that Romney lost in 2012. He has zero appeal to Independents and conservative Democrats and brings no new voters to the party, which is precisely why he cannot win. He currently polls better than Trump (slightly) against Clinton simply because his name ID is not as great and because the Dems are gentle in criticizing him thus far...because they are salivating at the hope that he will be the nominee.

If you want an electoral replay of 2012, elect this year's Mitt Romney now known as Ted Cruz.
« Last Edit: April 17, 2016, 11:32:08 pm by Mesaclone »
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Offline Mesaclone

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Re: Why Cruz could beat Clinton
« Reply #3 on: April 17, 2016, 11:34:17 pm »
Why Cruz could beat Clinton

Because he is awesome. Nuff said.

This is pretty "awesome":

Doubt his phoniness? In an interview last week with Hamodia, a Jewish newspaper, he declared that “one seminal event that impacted me as a child was the Entebbe raid,” in which Israeli commandos freed hostages of an airplane hijacking. “What the Entebbe raid said to me was, if you’re a terrorist, you may capture an Israeli. . . . But you are going to die.” That struck Cruz as “a very Texan approach.”

The raid that spurred such deep thoughts about the Jewish state and the Lone Star State was in 1976 — when Cruz was 5 years old and not long after his family moved from Canada.

From: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/many-democrats-want-to-face-trump-in-november-theyre-wrong/2016/04/15/4eeae3f2-030a-11e6-9203-7b8670959b88_story.html
We have the best government that money can buy. Mark Twain

Online Weird Tolkienish Figure

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Re: Why Cruz could beat Clinton
« Reply #4 on: April 17, 2016, 11:35:52 pm »
This is pretty "awesome":

Doubt his phoniness? In an interview last week with Hamodia, a Jewish newspaper, he declared that “one seminal event that impacted me as a child was the Entebbe raid,” in which Israeli commandos freed hostages of an airplane hijacking. “What the Entebbe raid said to me was, if you’re a terrorist, you may capture an Israeli. . . . But you are going to die.” That struck Cruz as “a very Texan approach.”

The raid that spurred such deep thoughts about the Jewish state and the Lone Star State was in 1976 — when Cruz was 5 years old and not long after his family moved from Canada.

From: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/many-democrats-want-to-face-trump-in-november-theyre-wrong/2016/04/15/4eeae3f2-030a-11e6-9203-7b8670959b88_story.html

You're not awesome. If you were awesome, you'd understand awesomeness. And you'd understand the awesomeness of Ted Cruz.

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Offline Mesaclone

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Re: Why Cruz could beat Clinton
« Reply #5 on: April 17, 2016, 11:38:02 pm »
You're not awesome. If you were awesome, you'd understand awesomeness. And you'd understand the awesomeness of Ted Cruz.

- Awesomely Weird Tolkienish Figure

As Inigo Montoya said so well "I don't think you know what that word means".
We have the best government that money can buy. Mark Twain

Offline sinkspur

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Re: Why Cruz could beat Clinton
« Reply #6 on: April 17, 2016, 11:40:32 pm »
He's a Pat Robertson redux in political guise, no longer an outsider, and cannot win back any state that Romney lost in 2012. He has zero appeal to Independents and conservative Democrats and brings no new voters to the party, which is precisely why he cannot win. He currently polls better than Trump (slightly) against Clinton simply because his name ID is not as great and because the Dems are gentle in criticizing him thus far...because they are salivating at the hope that he will be the nominee.

If you want an electoral replay of 2012, elect this year's Mitt Romney now known as Ted Cruz.

What states does Trump put in play?  And let's be serious about this:  Trump is not going to win New York, he's not going to carry Ohio or Florida or the northeast.  So where does he win?

Trump is stuck at 37% in the primaries and most of those are Republicans.  His unfavorables are 75% among women, 81% among Hispanics, and 52% among white men.  He also has 99% name recognition, so he's not an unknown in some sectors, as Cruz is.

Trump's a sure loser in November. I can't stand Cruz, personally, but he's got a better chance than Trump does, by far.
Roy Moore's "spiritual warfare" is driving past a junior high without stopping.

Offline Mesaclone

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Re: Why Cruz could beat Clinton
« Reply #7 on: April 17, 2016, 11:50:41 pm »
What states does Trump put in play?  And let's be serious about this:  Trump is not going to win New York, he's not going to carry Ohio or Florida or the northeast.  So where does he win?

Trump is stuck at 37% in the primaries and most of those are Republicans.  His unfavorables are 75% among women, 81% among Hispanics, and 52% among white men.  He also has 99% name recognition, so he's not an unknown in some sectors, as Cruz is.

Trump's a sure loser in November. I can't stand Cruz, personally, but he's got a better chance than Trump does, by far.

Pennsylvania and New Jersey would be two obvious states Trump brings into play. Virginia, Florida and Ohio as well. Those are the five key states and Cruz...on a good day...equals Romney's performance. More likely, his evangelism and political alignment costs him votes in all 5 of those states.

As for Trump's unfavorables...the only apt word is malleable.

Further, Trump is now polling in the mid 40's nationally with Republicans...not stuck at 37 as you assert (As per the two most recent national polls from Fox and CBS). Try again.
« Last Edit: April 17, 2016, 11:52:21 pm by Mesaclone »
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Offline sinkspur

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Re: Why Cruz could beat Clinton
« Reply #8 on: April 18, 2016, 12:00:19 am »
Pennsylvania and New Jersey would be two obvious states Trump brings into play. Virginia, Florida and Ohio as well. Those are the five key states and Cruz...on a good day...equals Romney's performance. More likely, his evangelism and political alignment costs him votes in all 5 of those states.

As for Trump's unfavorables...the only apt word is malleable.

Further, Trump is now polling in the mid 40's nationally with Republicans...not stuck at 37 as you assert (As per the two most recent national polls from Fox and CBS). Try again.

At this point, in 2012, Romney was polling at 57%.  Trump is a known quantity, and  over 50% of Republicans don't support him, to say nothing of how he polls against Hillary.

I would bet big money that Trump will not win New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, or Florida.  He might win Ohio, but there are states the GOP won where he might be exposed. Hell, Texas might even be in play with a Trump candidacy.
Roy Moore's "spiritual warfare" is driving past a junior high without stopping.